However, I did learn quite a lot of information from this course. Part of my
job is reviewing financials prepared by my co-workers. From an industry
standpoint, I know what I am looking for, but this class dove deeper into the
‘why’. I feel that as I analyze balance sheets and P&L’s, I have a better
understanding of what each report contains. a The next step in my career is to
help with company (client) valuations. Working for a CPA firm that handles
franchise owner/operators, valuations are done for numerous reasons. The
main reason is for sale or purchase of new stores. Typically, we value the
stores based on ‘times cash flow’. For instance, a client might pay 5 times
cash flow for a store purchase or a group of stores. Over the past eight
weeks, I found myself comparing the information from this class with ‘real
life’ at a CPA firm. It was quite interesting.
For my project, I chose to value JetBlue. Big Data and Analytics is an
emerging technology that already is and will continue to benefit the airline
industry. In the article I found, one of JetBlue’s competitors uses a
“sophisticated ‘collect, detect, act’ system to analyze roughly 150 elements
in a customer’s profile, such as prior purchases, preferences, and so on, and
personalize offers to them.” (Strong, 2021) Using these analytics, JetBlue’s
competitor saw an increase in revenue of 15% over each year. The system in
place also uses machine-learning algorithms that can send out mass alerts to
the airline staff and customers. a This keeps consumers informed about any
safety concerns and flight issues or delays.
Reference:
Strong, J. (2021, April 30). Aviation Technology Trends: 2021 & Beyond.
Retrieved from https://resources.vistair.com/articles/aviation-
technology-trends-2021-beyond
